


Male Banter

by DivineVarod



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bullying, M/M, Male Friendship, Misunderstandings, Pre-Slash, male banter, self help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 10:37:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7357885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineVarod/pseuds/DivineVarod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events in Queeg Rimmer suddenly stops talking to Lister, much to the latter's annoyance. The young Scouser decides to find out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Male Banter

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a conversation on Tumblr about why Lister laughed at Rimmer during Queeg and an article on male banter and how it can sometimes be damaging.

Lister was sitting at the iron table of the bunkroom, bored out of his wits. Rimmer wasn't talking to him and it annoyed him. It annoyed him more than he'd dare to admit. He needed him: needed to talk to him, argue with him. Anything.  
  
“What are you moping about man?” He tried again.  
  
No answer. Damn.  
  
It was worrying. He'd never realised, but Rimmer really was the one keeping him sane. Keeping him from going crazy with boredom.  
Without him there was nothing to do: the ship was taking care of itself right now and Cat was on his sixth nap of the day.  
He had watched three films, held a bubble gum contest, talked with food dispensers and raced his own shadow on his space bike. He'd eaten, joked with Holly and now … now he'd run out of ideas.  
  
Rimmer always had him do useless tasks. He deeply hated those tasks, but now realised that they were something to do. And he needed something to do. Even reading to Rimmer or turning pages for him was better than sitting here doing nothing at all.  
  
“Rimmer, you've been grumpy to me for three days. Either talk to me or smegging leave.”  
  
Suddenly Rimmer looked up from his bunk and glared at Lister.  
  
“I'm surprised you don't ask Holly to just make me leave for you.”  
  
“What?” Lister didn't have a clue what Rimmer was on about, but at least he spoke.

“What do you mean 'what'? You think I'd just forget how you laughed at me when I called for help. When I was made to run beyond unconsciousness? I called for you, and you just ... laughed."  
  
“Oh smeg.”  
  
“Oh smeg indeed, miladdo. It's ironic, isn't it? How you can save computers and robots. How you care about them and tell them they have an identity, a personality, free will, feelings … A SOUL! All these moral issues you like to throw about. But when it comes to me … I'm nothing, aren't I? You just look on and smirk when something takes over my body.”  
  
Lister bit his lip. He'd half expected this to come up, but hoped Rimmer had forgotten. But no, that would have been to easy.  
   
“Every day!! _Every day_ , Lister! for hours on end my body moving on it's own accord. Nothing I could do to stop it. Do you have any idea how horrific that is?”  
  
“He was just trying to make you fit.”  
  
“Oh, and then it's alright, is it? I wonder how you'd feel if someone took over your body and you'd have to watch it being abused without any means of stopping it! I was in so much pain. I was scared Lister. But no-one did anything, said anything. It was as if I had no rights, as if I didn't matter.”  
  
Silence.

Lister was unsure what to say. He'd never really given the situation with Queeg and Rimmer much thought. Thinking about it now, hearing Rimmer describe it, it sounded messed up. Rimmer had cried out for him to help him, he should have responded to that. It might not have solved anything but atleast Rimmer would have known someone cared. He felt a twinge of guilt, but took great care not to show Rimmer this.   
   
“I felt so violated." Rimmer continued, softer now. "I always tried to … pretend I'm still alive despite everything and then this … thing suddenly takes over all that I am. It just brought it home to me.”  
  
When Lister remained silent Rimmer turned in his bunk, his back now facing Lister, his arms wrapped around himself tightly. Lister sighed, he felt a bit of a heel now, he'd better say something.  
  
“Hey, sorry, okay. I didn't think. It just looked … funny. I thought it was just a … a bit of a laugh, really.”  
  
Smart one Lister, he thought the moment he said it. You couldn't have said something worse if you tried.  
And yes, Rimmer turned round in a flash and stared at the Scouser with withering disdain.  
  
“Just . A . Laugh?” Rimmer repeated with a clipped tone that could have frozen the Sahara.

Lister quickly tried to explain, while wondering why he'd been so hell-bent on getting Rimmer to speak in the first place. The silence and the boredom had been preferable.   
   
“Yeah … well … I mean. Not a laugh laugh, not a laugh per-see … But … the way you can … well, involuntarily laugh see. Like …" Then it hit him. "Like how you laughed when I had that accident back then …?”  
  
Suddenly the hurt faded from the Hologram's face. To Lister's surprise Rimmer suddenly smiled at him.  
  
“Oh yes! When your harness snapped. That was a good joke you did there did Listy! That's not what I was talking about, though." He suddenly looked down shyly and bit his nail. "Or … or do you mean we're friends now?”  
  
Lister couldn't really grasp this odd twist of conversation.  
   
“What?”  
  
Rimmer got up and placed himself in front of Lister, suddenly looking extremely happy.  
   
“Well, that's what men do with their mates, isn't it? Laugh when they fall down, bump into something. Male banter. We're two male chums bantering, right?”  
  
Okay, that was new. And wrong. Very, very wrong.  
   
“Rimmer, when Queeg drilled ya, did he give ya brain damage as well, mate? That's not male banter, man.”  
  
Rimmer looked genuinely confused, and a tad concerned. He sat back on the bunk.  
   
“What …?” He muttered. “But … but I saw you do that too, didn't I? When Peterson was drunk and fell over … and when Selby had that limp and …”  
  
“We were all drunk, Rimmer. And actual, real, close friends.”  
  
“Oh come off it Lister," Rimmer sounded very defensive, but couldn't hide the hint of desperation that slipped into his voice. "I know how these things work! I bought a book on male friendship, it's how real male mates are supposed to be. An insult here, a dig there. Laugh when you're being insulted. It might be hurtful and painful sometimes, but they don't really mean it. It's just a bit of harmless fun. It helped me understand that ... Maybe I wasn't bullied after all. You see? That's what my brothers always did to me, and the boys at school, the crew on the ship. The book explained it to me: they did it because they cared. It was just a bit of harmless fun! Boys being boys. That was what I was trying to explain to you in that first week. The book says that ...”  
  
“Don't!” Lister suddenly exclaimed hostilely. Was Rimmer really being serious? If he was he was even more crazy than he'd thought. “Don't even finish it. No, Rimmer: male banter, _real_ male banter is a cheeky insult, laughing at a small stupidity. Not laughing at a severe injury or insulting someone to the point of pain. I don't know who your friends were but …”  
  
He stopped, he did know who Rimmer's friends were and he also knew how the Hologram had been treated by them: No-one and everyone always treated him like smeg. Apparently, from what he'd heard, he'd been treated similarly by his family. He wondered if Rimmer had used the book as a psychological crutch to make him believe that he was liked, as reality was too harsh to face. He silently cursed Holly for the whole Queeg business and for being unable to upload some sort of psychology bot to help him deal with Rimmer's many issues.  
Despite these thoughts he couldn't help more words escaping his lips. Words he wished he'd strangled at birth.  
   
“Rimmer, you're such a smeghead. You can't learn friendships from books. You have to live them.”  
  
Boom.

Lister felt a bit alarmed when he could visibly see something die in Rimmer's eyes: it was as if a light slowly faded out. He had shattered something that had kept the Hologram going.

Rimmer looked at Lister as if he was searching for something as he babbled as if fighting through pain.

“Really, Listy? That means … I was just trying to learn what I kept doing wrong. Why people keep hating and abandoning me. I thought that … maybe some people didn't really mean it. That they might …” He cringed. “Oh God, you're right! I had it wrong again, didn't I? I can never get anything right ever. Stupid toss-pot A. J. Rimmer does it again."  
  
The Hologram curled up in the bunk again and turned away from Lister, facing the grey wall.  
  
“How could I've been so stupid. All those horrible insults and I just took it hoping the book was right: that no matter how hurtful, some of these people were joshing. Male banter, what a joke. I should have known, I should have known! No-one likes me. It's was just bullying after-all and it smegging hurts.”  
  
Silence. Well, not complete silence: Lister clearly heard muffled whimpers and hitched breaths coming from the Hologram.  
  
"Rimmer ...?"  
  
"Go away Lister. Why don't you go switch me of or something? Better for the both of us."  
   
Lister hated this. No matter his feelings about Rimmer, no-one deserved to be this hurt. Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut? Why couldn't he just have let Rimmer have this, if that was what he needed to believe so badly? He'd just wanted to be right and now the poor guy was more depressed than ever. He had to fix this one, but how?

More silence.  
  
Lister thought about it. All Rimmer needed to hear was that somehow he'd been liked. It shouldn't be too difficult.   
  
Even more silence. Rimmer had stopped whimpering, but had not moved a muscle.

An idea: Maybe he could … why not? There was no-one left to contradict him.

“Hey ... Ya know ... It … it was just banter with me, Rimmer …” Lister suddenly said softly.

“Hmmm …”

Not much response, but he'd press on.

“And with Peterson, Chen and Selby … What we said and did … it ... it ... was banter. We were kind of … fond of you in that way … I still sorta am you .. erm ... silly smegger ...”  
  
Rimmer slowly lifted his body and turned to Lister. His face full of hope, wonder and confusion. His eyes begging, pleading, for this to be true.  
   
“You … you really mean that?”  
  
Lister knew he had to be careful. He smiled at the Hologram.  
  
“Yeah, sure do. We loved joshing with you, because you could …” Lister really had to think this through. “erm … take a joke and give back as good as you got. That's why I love winding you up. You can be a really funny guy when you want to be, Rimsy.”  
  
A small light returned to the hazel eyes and a far too smug smile started to appear on the Holograms face.  
  
“A funny guy? Me? Yes, yes I can be. Can't I? Arnold J. Rimmer fun to be with, that's me!”  
  
Lister looked at Rimmer and had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing: the Hologram was sitting up straight. A new, fragile, confidence slowly filling his body.  
The Scouser shook his head and smiled at him again.  
   
“Yep, Arn, that's you …”  
  
Well, maybe he could be, sometimes ...


End file.
